The Boxer (1997)
7/10
This place makes me want to kill.
29 February 2008
I cannot imagine a better example of religion's failure than the war in Northern Ireland. The land that we celebrate in March as a place of happiness is one where Catholics and Protestants bathed the ground with the blood of their young.

Danny (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a former IRA member who has spent the last 14 years in prison. he just wants to get on with his life and forget the war, but it is still going on and cannot be ignored. He also has unresolved personal issues with Maggie (Emily Watson) to address. They have to sneak around as she is a symbol - a wife with a husband in prison for his activities.

Outstanding performances by Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown , There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York) and Emily Watson (Hilary and Jackie, Breaking the Waves, Punch-Drunk Love), and Brian Cox (Zodiac, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy) as the man who was trying to establish a peace.

As you would expect of a film set in the war, there is no comedy or romance, just a dark, dirty, grim tale of life as it really is, not what we wish it to be. A brilliant cast giving us a needed reminder of the cost of war.
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